[oe] Switching SCM to git and commit/review policy

[pHilipp Zabel]

On Fri, Jun 13, 2008 at 10:20 AM, Richard Purdie <rpurdie at rpsys.net> wrote:
> After much discussion the OE core team unanimously agree that a change
> of SCM to git would be in the best interests of the project. The main
> reasons for this are:
>
> * more powerful merging/branching capabilities in git
> * better web facilities to browse changes
> * better performance
> * larger and more active userbase
> * lack of developer momentum with monotone
>
> There has been discussion about this on the developers list in the past
> where most viewpoints were well represented and we don't really feel
> that opening the choice of SCM for further discussion would be
> beneficial although obviously anyone is free to raise serious objections
> to this.

Good news.

> As always, there is a but. This change is conditional on being able to
> come up with a sensible commit and review policy for OE.dev. The core
> team does feel that the metadata quality has dropped over time in some
> areas and we need to have a better review process. The change to an SCM
> with good branch support is a vital part of this but not the only part.
>
> We've not made any decisions on what the commit/review policy should be,
> this is open for discussion. We're thinking it may take the form of some
> kind of kernel style Signed-off-by: tags and a switch to a partially
> pull based model rather than just push based as we use monotone so more
> than one developer handles any given change.

Personally, I'd like to see every patch to OE being sent to and
reviewed on the mailing list.
About a pull based model, wouldn't we need something like the kernels'
subsystem maintainers to share the load? Seeing that there already
seems to be a serious manpower problem, who would have the time to do
that?

> The timescales for switching are not yet established and whilst we have
> some server infrastructure in place, its not all there yet. Lets starts
> the discussion on commit and review policy and in the meantime we'll
> establish some timescales. I'd expect we'll aim to switch quite quickly
> now the hard decision is made.
>
> Finally, we'd like to mention that whilst some people have had issues
> with it, on balance, monotone has served us well and want to thank the
> monotone guys for the help and support they've given us.
>
> The OE Core Team

regards
Philipp